6.20.2009

Redneck Japanese water fountain

"That looks like a redneck version of a Japanese water fountain."...is what Karl said when he saw the contraption I had set up after a recent rainfall. Ha! A nice thought (??), but really I was just trying to capture the rain water so that both of our rain barrels could get filled for use in the garden. Since we hadn't yet linked the two barrels together, this is what I did...

First I found a piece of scrap metal in our shed and set it up to act as a gutter diverting rain into this bucket:

When the bucket was full, I'd pick it up and lift it over to the other barrel:

Dump the water in, and repeat over and over and over again:

And then, once I'd used up this water and the barrels were empty again...I got out the hack saw and cut a section of our gutter away so that I could prop the dark green barrel up on cinder blocks up higher than the blue barrel. And now the run-off from the green barrel will automatically pour into the blue barrel...so much easier than the redneck Japanese water fountain method (although not nearly as funny)! :)

(Like those hand prints in the first shot? Those are from the previous owners of our house, and I tried to pressure wash them off but had no luck...so now they just wave at me all the time, and it's a little annoying...)